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Chicken Coop

In April of 2015 we decided to get some chickens. We ended up getting six baby chicks, all female laying hens. We had to raise the chicks indoors for about a month which gave me pleanty of time to build a suitable chicken coop for them.
 
I had been looking at a few styles of coop online but didnt find anything I really liked so I decided to just design my own. I had a rough idea of what I wanted the coop to look like like so I sketched up a plans and bought a bunch of 2x4's to get started.
I started by buying a couple of black plastic trays to make the floor of the coop. I knew I wanted the floor to slide out of the coop for easy cleaning. After I purchased the trays I pretty much just built a frame around them. Since I was building the coop in my basement, I had to build it in two sections so I could get it out of my bulkhead when I was finished.
After framing out the main coop I started to add on the nesting boxes. There will be six of them, each a cozy space for the chickens to lay their eggs.
After the frame of the coop was built, I used T-111 plywood to create the outside walls. I cut a hole in the left hand side for the ramp that would lead up into the coop. Once all the walls were up I started to paint the coop red.
After a few coats of paint, I had to bring the coop sections outside to attach them together and put the roof on. I found a clearanced bundle of roof shingles at the hardware store to complete the roof.
I also put two small roof sections on the nesting boxes.  These roof sections are hinged so you can easily grab the eggs out of the boxes.
Now it was time for the finishing touches. I built a run that attached to the coop using eye hooks so it can be easily removed & cleaned. I also started attaching some trim pieces to make it look a bit nicer.
One last finishing touch.
We now have six happy chickens who give us 5-6 eggs a day. We usually let them free range during the day but lock them safely inside the coop at night.
We decided to add an extension onto the run for the chickens before the snow came this winter. We tripled the size of the run and put a roof over it so the chickens would still have a spot to go outside during the winter.
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